Fatal Frame Chronicles: A Collection of Drabbles
by Aoi Shoudou
Summary: For those of you uninitiated in the drabble, it's a hundred-word vignette about something. In the case of this fic, they discuss the tragic histories of the ghosts of Himuro Mansion (and in later chapters, All Gods' Village).
1. Chapter 1

The Fatal Frame Ghost Chronicles  
A Collection of Drabbles  
  
A/N: For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of the drabble, it's basically a hundred-word or so vignette about some short subject within another subject. Here, the topic is the ghosts of Fatal Frame 1, and if I finish with those, Fatal Frame 2.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
--The Bound Man--  
  
A rogue priest, promoting insurrection, was hardly desirable so close to the date of the Strangling Ritual. His lifelong duty breached, he no longer wished to put these innocent maidens to death; instead, he slandered the very concept of the ritual itself.   
His crusade never got very far.   
Instead, he himself was the one bound and strangled, maligned by his brothers in that faithless faith, condemned to a painful eternity simply for nobly challenging an age-old responsibility that was not truly as harmless as he had thought. As the chafing ropes ripped at his flesh, he gazed up at the lifeless faces of his fellow priests, and realized that the afterlife was better than the cursed existence that Hell bore for them.   
(122)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Child Behind--  
  
Life is easy at the age of eight. Those elder than you are the ones who have to worry about the big stuff: the taxes, putting food on the table and keeping you happy and healthy. In fact, in such a young and carefree time, the only things you have to worry about are...  
"She's cute! I wonder if she'll let me talk to her?"   
"Maybe she wants to play a game of hide and seek?"   
"I'm running out of time! Where can I hide?"   
"She won't be able to find me here...Will she?"   
"What's that creaking noise I hear above me?"   
Having a roof over your head does not always mean that the roof is a stable one. (119)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Angry Man--  
  
He'd always been told to settle down for just a second. Just a second, his parents, his teachers, his friends had implored him. But his furies, easily invoked and difficultly dismissed, ran rampant and unchecked, unstoppable by any other human. One day this rage had come to a breaking point: his mother disagreed with some trivial thing he'd done and, at the apex of a swiftly escalating conflict, he settled her down once and for all with the business end of a hot poker. Then and there, he realized what a terrible person he had been to those around him, and as the poison slid down his throat, the only person he was angry at was himself.  
(117)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Man at Partition, Koji Ogata--  
  
"What IS this place?" he'd thought to himself, separated from his comrades, unable to leave, lost and confused. His bag was heavy with the Shinto literature that his employer had asked him to attain, and with each second that passed he grew more conscious of the weight slung upon his shoulder. The front room of the mansion was in poor condition; beams had fallen from the ceiling and parts of the floor had been uprooted. He peered around, looking for any sign of Tomoe or Junsei, but to no avail. Finally, he checked behind a tattered partition screen, and gasped in shock at what he found.   
Hanging there from the ceiling was a phantom rope. It was merely the first.   
(120)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Man With Long Arms--  
  
His daughter.   
His beloved daughter.   
Gone.   
He flung himself to the ground, screaming at the stone-faced priests, cursing them and their families, begging for his daughter back. Without a word in return, the priests seized him by his uplifted arms, and dragged him to the Moon Well. Were he not in such an anger-induced delirium from the loss of his daughter, he would have been terrified of his fate. The priests strapped the screaming man to the platform and tied the ropes around his extremities. His neck snapped and his legs ripped out of their sockets before his arms could be separated as well. Those outstretched arms were doomed forever to reach in vain for the daughter they died for.   
(120)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Woman In Pain--  
  
The aching in her stomach had been a minor nuisance several weeks ago, but with time it had quickly intensified. Doctors had merely placed the blame on age, and that it would rectify with time. She tried desperately to ignore it, and clipped at the rose bushes with frenetically shaking hands, but it refused to subside. Finally, it reached its cruel climax. She gave out a cry of utmost misery and vomited, a horrible amalgamation of blood and bile. Tears streaming down her face and blood dribbling from her mouth, she collapsed, falling squarely on her clippers, their stainless steel blades no longer assassins of merely rose stems. (108)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Bro's Shadow, Mafuyu Hinasaki--  
  
Mafuyu was an ambitious boy, but never a particularly lucky one. His pensive nature and sensitivity to unseen forces ostracized him from society, and he found it difficult to make friends or secure jobs. After his mother's death, the latter became an increasing liability. As he became friends with the acclaimed novelist Junsei Takamine, however, he realized that this was his break. He would finally be discovered by someone, and he could help to support himself...and his sister. Takamine promised to tutor him after returning from Himuro Mansion. Mafuyu could not bear to wait that long. Opportunity only knocks once, right? (101)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Woman in Kimono--  
  
Everyone had told her how beautiful she was. It was only appropriate on her wedding day. Clad in a scarlet kimono, her lips painted rosy red and her face a marvelous pallor, she was the envy of Himuro Mansion. Only one issue remained, however. Her husband never showed up. She held the note in her heartbroken hand and gazed at it with tear-crested eyes. He'd found another. Someone younger? Someone wealthier? Someone more beautiful?   
No one was more beautiful than she on this day, and in death her beauty would be sealed. Not even her kimono was stained with the blood the knife drew. (104)  
  
  
  
  
  
--Hallway Man, Koji Ogata--  
  
The hallway took him deeper into the mansion, and he didn't like it at all. The things he did for the sake of his job surprised him. It was an extremely foreboding hallway, with bloodstained ropes brushing by him like the fingers of Death. "Mr. Takamine? Tomoe?" he called out, but nothing greeted his cries except the chilling darkness. He stepped, stepped, stepped to the end of the hall and faced himself in the mirror. He was a haggard man. Overworked, underpaid and frightened out of his wits, all that he really wanted to do was go home and sleep.   
He was not entirely conscious, as he looked at that wraith of himself, that a translucent blue rope had formed around his right arm. (124)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: Those are pretty fun to write. =P Not a whole lot to say here...Expect more within the next few days! Do leave a review. They make me feel happy. 3 


	2. Chapter 2

The Fatal Frame Chronicles: A Collection of Drabbles  
Chapter 2  
  
A/N: This chapter was finished a while back, but my computer crashed and I lost the document before I got a chance to upload it. D'oh. =/ I think I pretty much remember the gist of these stories, fortunately, so it's only a minor setback. =P  
  
--Seductress--  
  
"Hello?" she called out inquisitively into the dark hallway in front of her. "Is anyone here?" There was no reply but the formidable clacking of her high heels against the cold wooden ground.  
She hated herself. Cast to the streets by poverty, she turned to the only thing that an uneducated woman has to offer for her financial support. The days had been cruel and miserable; she couldn't remember the last time she'd worn a sincere smile or felt a sincere happiness.   
She'd woke up outside the mansion; all of her money was gone. The man she'd stayed with last night had drugged her. Equating a large residence to large amounts of money, she decided to search for clientele at ominous Himuro.   
The woman turned the corner, about ready to give up and leave, when she saw the masked figure, the bloody sword, and the ground littered with corpses. He'd seen and skewered her before she even had a chance to scream.   
(162)  
  
  
--Man at Screen, Koji Ogata--  
  
He had nowhere left to go. There were two doors in the main hallway: one of them was locked, and the other led to a fireplace room with nothing but another locked door. He gave a pitiful moan and tossed the bookbag on the ground in defeat, but then gasped upon hearing the shattering of glass. His reading spectacles were in there. "Stupid..." he cursed himself, bending down to inspect the damage.   
Then there was cold.   
Something cold behind him.   
He whirled around to see the ghostly figure of a girl, pointing one gaunt finger to the partition next to him. He looked to it, then looked back at her, but she was gone.   
He had not seen his reflection in Kirie's eyes, revealing the shining blue rope around his left arm.   
Apprehension twisting his insides, he moved the partition away to reveal a musty door. He then realized that Himuro Mansion was more than it appeared.   
Koji Ogata had no idea.   
(161)  
  
  
--Girl Turning--  
  
"Oh..." she whispered to herself, looking down the deep well. She dropped her new doll. Her mother would be furious, but she was more worried about the doll; she'd get her new blouse wet. The girl couldn't see a single thing in the pitch-blackness of the well, so in a fevered moment of childish naïveté she reached in to try to grab it.  
A cold, clammy, slimy hand grasped her wrist with astonishing ferocity. She screamed, but was unheard, for seconds later she was pulled into the freezing and murky water.  
The only thing she could see was her doll, but something was wrong with it. Its innocent painted-on features were twisted into a visage of evil, with malicious eyes and an eerie grin. Its porcelain arms reached to her through the dark, and that was what terrified the drowning girl the most.  
(141)  
  
  
--Monk Into Dark--  
  
The Himuro Family Master demanded that Kirie be purified for the seven days before the Strangling Ritual, and that the priests he commissioned to do the job remain there at all times. Things became pretty dull when duties were not called, however, and one monk decided to read up on the history of the fascinating mansion. After a fruitless search for material in the library – the lack of material on Himuro aroused suspicion in him where it should never have been – he decided to return to the Moon Well, but quickly got lost in the sprawling mansion.  
He found himself in the Fish Tank Room, which was impossibly dark. Had night come so soon? He tread across the planks connecting land carefully...before hearing a hideous shriek from above him.  
Long arms grabbed him and pulled him up into more darkness.  
(140)  
  
  
--Female Head--  
  
The maids of Himuro Mansion had it rough. Virtually unpaid for having to scour and clean the gigantic mansion, it is needless to say that they were overworked to the breaking point. One in particular tended to the entrance areas of the mansion, and she had yet to clean the Fireplace Room, her least favorite.  
She'd heard something about a ritual going on at the mansion that night, but she didn't really care. She still had to clean, ritual or not. As she dusted the staircase, in a state of automated apathy, she heard the door slide open. She didn't really care.  
"Hahaha." The eerie laugh behind her was a little disturbing, but she didn't really care; the Family Master was a creepy man anyway.  
"Don't you have a ritual or something?" she inquired half-heartedly. They were her last words before the sword sliced clean through her neck. As her decapitated head tumbled down the stairs, she realized that in the throes of teenage angst, she didn't really care.  
(169)  
  
  
--Broken Neck--  
  
She screamed.  
Her daughter was there, floating at the top of the well, her raven tresses billowing out from her head like some grotesque moss-laden fan. She seized the lifeless corpse of the girl and turned her around, and at seeing her, she screamed again.  
Her face was locked in an expression of fear and terror, eyes bloodshot and skin gray. Her mouth was pulled open in a silent shriek of terror.  
The woman had nothing without her daughter. Nothing but a completely empty existence. She was at the balcony of the tatami room before she knew it, heartbroken tears streaming down her cheeks, but before she could fling herself over, one fleeting thought crossed her mind.  
"It hurts."  
She didn't care.  
(123)  
  
  
--Floating Woman--  
  
She left the world with no regrets. Married contentedly with three children and living in the Himuro Mansion, her life was simple but perfect. Happiness was merely a walk away to the Cherry Atrium to watch the trees burst into spring bloom and watching the iridescent silver fish swim through the pond in the back.  
The disease stuck without warning or cure. As she lied there, quarantined in the unused hallway from everyone else but her beloved family, she looked into each of their eyes and smiled. The peace she sought would come to her soon.  
Perhaps there WAS one regret lingering in her mind.  
"Why couldn't it have lasted longer?"  
(111)  
  
  
--Wandering Man, Koji Ogata--  
  
Hungry. Tired. Depressed. And most importantly, lost.  
He couldn't really hear himself think anymore  
but  
and then there was that picture Tomoe took and he looked at it and  
ropes ropes ropes one here one here and another and another  
The rope circling his neck seemed to be the tightest. They hadn't been there when she took the picture. Koji would have been scared, but he couldn't bring himself to be through the  
ropes  
oh god where am I Tomoe Junsei please help me please Tomoe please  
Cold.  
Koji could hear ropes tightening. Not knowing what it was or where it was coming from, he quickly flung himself into the nearest closet.  
the photo ropes hate you  
(117)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A/N: I have to confess that I sort of forgot the in-game roles of a couple of ghosts in this chapter, most notably Girl Turning and Monk Into Dark, so I kind of improvised. Hope you don't mind. =3 


End file.
